Kanjhawala Case: Court Reserves Order On Ashutosh Bhardwaj's Bail Plea

A court has reserved its order on Ashutosh Bhardwaj's bail plea in the Kanjhawala hit-and-drag case.

Image used for representational purposes only (FILE PHOTO)

A court here on Thursday reserved its order on the bail plea of Ashutosh Bhardwaj, an accused in the Kanjhawala hit-and-drag case in which a woman was hit by a car and dragged a long distance underneath the vehicle in outer Delhi leading to her death. Metropolitan Magistrate Sanya Dalal will pass the order on Bhardwaj's plea at 2 pm. Additional Public Prosecutor Atul Srivastava said there was a thin line of difference between "having knowledge and subsequently having knowledge" and claimed that Bhardwaj had misled the investigation by stating that co-accused Deepak Khanna was driving the car.

Bhardwaj's advocate said the accused was not present in the car at the time of the incident and all alleged offences were bailable in nature.

Police arrested Deepak Khanna (26), Amit Khanna (25), Krishan (27), Mithun (26), and Manoj Mittal in connection with the case on January 2. Later, they zeroed in on Bhardwaj, who was arrested four days later.

All accused were remanded to 14 days in judicial custody on Monday.

The victim, Anjali Singh (20), was killed in the early hours of new year after her scooty was hit by a car, which dragged her for more than 12 kilometres from Sultanpur to Kanjhawala.

Kanjhawala Case: Court Seeks Reasons For Delay In Responding To Initial PCR Calls

A court here has directed the Delhi Police to file a report detailing the reasons for the delay in responding to the initial PCR calls made in the Kanjhawala hit and drag case.

The court passed the directions while hearing the prosecution’s application seeking 14 days’ judicial custody of the six accused.

“He (Joint Commissioner of Police) shall present a report for the reasons attributable to the delay caused in responding to the initial PCR call…at 3.24 am and…at 4.11 am,” Metropolitan Magistrate Sanya Dalal said in an order passed on Monday.

Noting “various CCTV footage from day one till now” had surfaced, the judge directed the police officer to “ensure immediate preservation of the CCTV footage” at the place of occurrence “to avoid tampering of relevant technical evidence”.

“Further, a report in a sealed cover be filed by the next date of hearing regarding the presence or availability of all the CCTV cameras at the place of occurrence and the alleged route map of 12-13 kilometres adopted by the accused persons,” the judge said.

The report would also specify the number of CCTV cameras installed by the state government, including the functional and non-functional cameras, the judge added.

The court also sent six accused Deepak Khanna, Amit Khanna, Krishan, Mithun, Manoj Mittal and Ashutosh Bhardwaj to judicial custody till January 23.

It said the investigation was at a nascent stage and there was sufficient material on record to justify the judicial custody remand of accused persons.

Anjali Singh, 20, was killed in the early hours of January 1 after her scooter was hit by a car which dragged her for about 12 km from Sultanpuri to Kanjhawala.

(This report has been published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)